The debate on whether military humanitarian intervention and anti-atrocity norms, such as the responsibility to protect, cause perverse incentives, and provocative violence by a rebel group, has yet to reach a consensus. Specifically, existing theories are unable to fully explain why “emboldened” rebel groups provoke the government in some cases but not others. This paper reconciles this unresolved debate by arguing that it is not anti-atrocity norms but the temporary feasibility of humanitarian intervention that induces the potential rebel group to actually provoke the government. The inherent temporariness of the feasibility of large-scale intervention causes a commitment problem: An expectation of a temporary intervention shifts the balance of power toward a potential rebel and opens a quickly closing window of opportunity. A three-player game shows that, among other findings, a higher probability of humanitarian intervention alleviates the potential rebel’s incentive to fight, implying that the criticism of anti-atrocity norms is a “false charge.” The model also (i) explains why weaker groups can rebel in the shadow of external intervention and (ii) presents a novel implication that lowering the intervention cost can exacerbate the adverse incentive when a domestic commitment problem caused by the consolidation of government power is not severe.

中文翻译：

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反复无常的承诺：重新审视军事人道主义干预和反暴行规范的意外后果

关于军事人道主义干预和反暴行规范（例如保护责任）是否会导致不正当激励以及反叛组织挑衅性暴力的争论尚未达成共识。具体来说，现有理论无法完全解释为什么“有恃无恐”的叛乱团体在某些情况下会激怒政府，而在其他情况下则不然。本文调和了这一悬而未决的争论，认为并不是反暴行规范，而是人道主义干预的暂时可行性，导致了潜在的叛乱组织真正挑衅政府。大规模干预的可行性固有的临时性导致了承诺问题：对临时干预的预期会将权力平衡转向潜在的叛乱者，并打开一个迅速关闭的机会之窗。一场三人游戏表明，除其他发现外，人道主义干预的可能性较高会减轻叛乱分子潜在的战斗动机，这意味着对反暴行规范的批评是“虚假指控”。该模型还（i）解释了为什么弱势群体会在外部干预的阴影下反抗；（ii）提出了一个新的含义，即当由于政府权力巩固而导致的国内承诺问题不被解决时，降低干预成本可能会加剧不利激励。严重。